Category: General

MarketingSherpa have published a case study on how a small software company called CoreStreet have been using their CEO’s blog to boost awareness.

It’s an interesting case study, kudos to their PR agency Schwartz Communications for driving the initiative.

“I wanted to talk about the themes that made me want to start this company in the first place — how does security fit into the world in general. In CoreStreet communications we’re limited to mentioning specific products. We can occasionally mention the whole vision, but too much and our investors would want to know how much is abstract punditry and how much is return on investment?”

Usual proviso with MarketingSherpa content, it’s only free until June 26th.

There is loads of blog-related content flooding onto the Internet, here’s a selection of some of the more interesting ones…

 Stephen Waddington at UK-based Rainer PR has penned an article that provides an introduction to blogging.

“So what about blogs as a mouthpiece for business? At present power in the blog world lies not in the hands of corporations, but instead in the words of the individual behind the blog that is successfully spreading a given message.”

 Microsoft’s Heather Leigh who works in HR ponders when “blogging” will become a recognized skill.

“I hope that in the future, as the blogging trend expands, we will see people refer to these as �blogging skills� (I’m trying to think of something more catchy but it is not coming to me). But before we see this show up on job descriptions, I think that we need to show our companies how blogging impacts our business. A lot of it is about perception and we need to figure out how to measure it. We need to highlight the connection between our blogging activities and results.” (Edited)

 Time magazine has published a widely referenced article on blogging entitled “Meet Joe Blog”.

“What makes blogs so effective? They’re free. They catch people at work, at their desks, when they’re alert and thinking and making decisions. Blogs are fresh and often seem to be miles ahead of the mainstream news. Bloggers put up new stuff every day, all day, and there are thousands of them. How are you going to keep anything secret from a thousand Russ Kicks? Blogs have voice and personality. They’re human. They come to us not from some mediagenic anchorbot on an air-conditioned sound stage, but from an individual. They represent � no, they are � the voice of the little guy.”

 Australia’s CIO Magazine has a piece on “Blogging for Fun and Profit” which looks at the business implications of blogging.

Some tips from the article:

• Have a dedicated staff willing to blog for your business (and compensate them for bountiful blogging).
• Give good blog (that is, write relevant stuff that builds your brand identity and intrigues people, particularly potential business leads).
• Build an audience for your blog via viral marketing to �link mavens and connectors�. Develop a link-rich blog where you list other relevant sites and blogs. For a good article read on how to do this: http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/tippingblog.htm

And of course don’t forget Global PR Blog Week 1.0 from July 12-16, 2004 which will provide you with everything you need to know on blogs and PR.

Footnote:

Thanks to Trevor Cook, Robb Hecht and Steve Rubel for the links.

In an article which can be filed to that folder entitled: “It says nothing to me about my life”, Luke Johnson in the UK Daily Telegraph “exposes” those horrible manipulative PR people who soil the common man’s newspaper with their dirty underhand tricks.

Sigh.

First of all, my personal belief is that for the vast majority of PR folks (>98%?) their daily job is as far removed from Johnson’s thesis as they can be.  The majority of PR people struggle every day to help clients to get their message out and communicate more effectively with their audiences though a variety of media from the press to newsletters etc. This isn’t exactly deep throat territory.

There are industries where PR people attempt to wield more control (Politics and Entertainment are two examples that spring to mind) over the media agenda.  And there’s no doubt that they are sometimes successful. 

But to brand the entire PR industry as a collective of manipulators who are trying to fool, cheat and lie to the general public is a load of tosh.

On a related note.  Surely it is up to journalists to expose shoddy PR practices.  After all, it is the journalist’s audience that is affected by such deceptions.  Journalists represent the filter between what the PR people want to promote and what reader’s receive.

Every week I hear horror stories about the entertainment industry theatening to withold access to certain celebrities should the magazine not conform to their wishes. It seems that these magazines are so desperate for circulation that they typically agree. Personally I’d like to see these magazines take a stand. Publish these “threats” and lead with front page stories about how “Celebrity X” threatened them. That might put an end to this nonsense.

These are the parts of our industry that give us all a bad name. They are many people’s perception of Public Relations. And as PR people know better than anyone, Perception IS reality.

My job isn’t about rough-handling journalists. I have had differences of opinion with them of course. But I have never stepped over the line in over thirteen years of media relations.

I am sick and tired of this conspiracy theory. Here’s a few realities:

1) Consumers are more sophisticated today than at any time in the past

2) The Editors of a magazine are responsible for the published content of their magazines.  That is their value. Should they tarnish that value by allowing PR people to manipulate them then they no longer deserve the patronage of their readers.

3) Spin doctors and A-list celebrity PRs inhabit a different world to the hundreds of thousands of practitioners who work hard to help clients to communicate better.

4) The sooner these “PR” people are exposed the better for everyone involved.

5) PR has increased in popularlity because organizations have realised the importance of good communication.

“With the expansion of the media industry, PR has moved out of the shadows and become a central part of the corporate world. Globalisation, advancing media technology and the rise of activist groups have all enhanced the status of PR.”

Footnote:

Robb Hecht and Trevor Cook both have comments on the opinion piece.

Posting has been sporadic recently as I’ve been travelling quite a bit and keeping up the blog has been difficult but normal service should be resumed now.

Whilst I’ve been away I have come across some interesting Analyst Relations stuff.

Elizabeth Albrycht has discovered Tekrati’s Industry Analyst Reporter which is an interesting new departure, a site that attempts to aggregate all the latest industry analyst news and research.  It’s definetely recommended if you’re working with Analysts.

I’ve also been exposed to Forrester’s Analyst Relations and Marketing Council which is a very interesting development.  Effectively, Forrester is building a forum for the PR and Marketing folks at their client firms to come together, discuss issues and learn more about Forrester.  It’s a very innovative program.  Kudos to Forrester.

Finally the Knowledge Capital Group monthly newsletter (The AR Insider) has some interesting artilces this month on the nature of analyst influence and working with analysts to get better market coverage. (I can’t find weblinks to these stories hence I haven’t included them, however you can sign up at the web site.)

PR Week has a good feature on PR and blogging in the latest issue, which interviews a number of the PR bloggers and promotes the forthcoming Global PR Blog Week which will take place in July.

 

Public Relations people need to be professional and ethical… that’s not exactly a news flash….

I always counsel people to approach bloggers with care.  When you mess up with a journalist you’re unlikely to see it in print. After all they probably wouldn’t have the time to detail the number of poor interactions they have with PR people every day.

Messing up with a blogger however, can often get you (and your client) published for all the wrong reasons.

Of course the rise of journalists maintaining personal blogs means that poor media relations may soon have a similar consequence.

Simone Paddock is a freelance journalist who was treated badly to say the least and she’s detailed the episode on her blog.

PR practice is becoming more transparent every day.  You need to make sure that the colleagues dealing with external audiences are well trained, professional and good with people!

“But the bottom line is: I love the rodeo. I had a great time last year  shooting the event. So I just might pay the money and go for fun. But I’ll be damned if I have the newspaper print any of the images to promote the Sisters Rodeo.”

Footnote:

Thanks to Hans Kullin for the link.

Good business practice teaches us that if you don’t cannibalize your own products, someone else will do it for you. It may be hard, it may be unpleasant but it will do you good in the long term.

The same adage can be added to the world of marketing services.  If PR professionals don’t step up to the plate on understanding how the new online tools can (and just as importantly can’t) help your organization or client, then there’s a host of other marketing folks only too delighted to pick up the slack.

There’s a whole range of candidates for consideration here. Think about websites, search engine optimization and of course weblogs. All these tools are involved in communication, yet how many PR professionals drive these disciplines in their organizations? Very few I’d wager.

Angelo Fernando, author of the Hoi Polloi blog recently attended the IABC conference in Los Angeles and was surprised that Microsoft PR director Janice Kaplan talked about a whole range of online communication tools but ignored blogs.

“So I asked her if the several bloggers at Microsoft –with or without corporate approval– frustrate the PR role, or add more slings to her bow. She replied that for the moment, they are watching what bloggers can do, but have no immediate plans to incorporate blogging into their strategy. I am not so surprised, considering how Microsoft ignored the Web phenomenon for quite some time.”

Now Microsoft is a large organization but it is a little surprising that their PR folks are so reticent about blogs, particularly as we know that Microsoft already undertakes quite a bit of blog relations.

In addition to the 400 or so Microsoft employee blogs, the company has kicked off the Channel 9 blog for developers, and over two years ago, Microsoft was already targeting influential bloggers, pre-briefing them on new products and bringing them to Redmond for exclusive briefings with executives.

Of course it obviously wasn’t the Microsoft PR guys, it was the product marketing folks.

When your marketing people have a two year head start it can be difficult to catch up. Be warned….

Footnote:

Jim Horton looks at how Stonyfield Farm, an organic yoghurt firm, is using blogs to communicate with its customers. (The only downside is all the Flash on the site!)

EMarketer covers a report that found almost 80% of Spam in April was for “healthcare” (I guess you could call this the promotion of hard drugs (ahem)) and “financial services” and poor old porn has slipped from 22% in January to 4.8% in April.

EMarketer also covers a report from Nucleus research that estimates Spam will cost $2,000 per employee in lost productivity this year.

Spam continues to reduce the effectiveness of e-mail, how long before governments take action? CAN SPAM has only proved that legislation alone won’t stop the problem.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is getting a lot of attention once again, this time it seems to be stimulated by the Wall St. Journal’s interest in it. (Aside: It’s interesting how the traditional media outlets continue to drive much of the blogosphere)

PR Opinions was in danger of becoming RSS Opinions last year, but I’ve weaned myself off promoting RSS on a daily basis and instead I am focussing on boring the pants off people face-to-face.

RSS is a typical technology sale.  When you try and explain it to a normal person you can see they begin to lose the will to live.  But when you sit them at a computer and show them how RSS can:

1) Save a huge amount of time monitoring hundreds of websites

2) Provide a low-cost mechanism of publishing content which people can subscribe to

Well then RSS becomes far more interesting.

The Online Journalism Review has an interesting article on the pro’s and con’s of RSS which is worth a read. 

The simple fact about RSS is that it is becoming a useful mechanism for reading and publishing content online.  It means that publishers can cut through the spam filter directly to their readers as long as their content is relevant and well written.  Furthermore, publishers can attract people to leave their RSS Readers to go directly to the source website with a little intelligence.

The downside of RSS is that there is still no means of measuring it’s success.  You can’t easily find out how many people are subcribed or how many unique individuals read your feed. In a world of online measurement that is a serious problem.

Steve Rubel had a conversation with the RSS’ daddy Dave Winer earlier this week.  Dave believes the users should take over RSS and I agree with him.  The emergence of a rival standard “ATOM” has created nothing but confusion and hopefully Google will see the light and fall back to the RSS camp.

RSS is still in its infancy, but it’s incredibly useful. The best way to understand it is to get your hands dirty and use it. Cape Clear has been offering RSS feeds for our news and site updates for quite some time and we’re seeing a lot of growth in the traffic numbers – though I can’t give you specifics!

RSS for Public Relations means increased efficiency and timeliness in monitoring news and opinions. It also provides an alternate channel for communicating directly with your audience. And it’s (relatively) free. What are you waiting for?

Dan Gillmor wrote last year:

“I wish public-relations people would get with the program, too. If they’d only start creating RSS feeds of releases, journalists and the public at large could see the material they want, and the PR industry would be able to stop blasting huge amounts of e-mail to people whose inboxes are already over-cluttered. Of course, there will continue to be a use for e-mail in PR, but the volume could be cut substantially.” 

Here’s a tutorial I wrote last year on setting up an RSS Reader for the uninitiated – give it a whirl.

Footnote:

Thanks to Darren Barefoot for the link to the OJR article.

Computerworld’s Quick Study on RSS.

Wired on RSS and how it fights Information Overload.

eContent Magazine: Can RSS Reduce Information Overload?

Kevin Dugan evangelizing RSS with PRNewswire’s Media Insider. 

PR Opinions: Why RSS is good enough for PR.

PR Opinions: RSS and Public Relations Redux

Lizzie Grubman is a very successful publicist who came to national prominence when she mowed down a line of people waiting to get into a nightclub in the Hamptons and then drove off.

Lizzie has been the subject of many postings here at PR Opinions (Post 73, Post 616, Post 646, Post 683) and now it looks as though she is successfully emerging from her personal crisis. Fair play to her.

Here’s a recent ABC interview with Lizzie.

“I can give really good advice to my clients when they go through really bad experiences and when they need crisis management. I was there, and they come to me because they know I can relate to their problems. When someone gets in trouble or something bad goes on in their life, I get a lot of calls, and a lot of new clients because of that.”

Footnote:

Thanks to Jeremy Pepper (who has confessed to a school-boy crush on Lizzie) for the link!